Secrets From Disney Movies You’ve Probably Missed

Who doesn’t love a good Disney movie? Even if you know every movie by heart, there are still a few secrets hidden inside of the movies that you’ve probably missed.

Yen Sid Spelled Backwards

Let’s start with Disney’s 1940 masterpiece, Fantasia. The movie does not have a storyline, rather animated short stories, accompanied by classical music. One such story involves Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer’s apprentice. The sorcerer’s name is Yen Sid. Remove the space from his name and write it backwards. You’ve got: Disney.

Disney Disclaimer

If you’re like most people, you probably don’t sit through all of the credits when the movie is over. However, you might want to skip to the end of the Frozen credits to catch a “disclaimer” the Disney company included which states: “The views and opinions expressed by Kristoff in the film that all men eat their own boogers are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Walt Disney company or the filmmakers.”

Sid The Garbageman

Who can forget the mean bully, Sid, from the first Toy Story. He is nothing short of evil and likes to do cruel experiments on his toys. We get to know some of his experimental toy abominations, and they are quite scary. In Toy Story 3, however, it seems like Sid got what was coming to him. We see a garbage truck pull up to Andy’s house to take out the trash. Guess who the garbageman is.

Scar Is Skinned

You might not have given a second thought to Mufasa’s line in The Lion King about how Scar “would make a very handsome throw rug.” We got to find out that this was actually true in a scene from Hercules. At first, Herc wears Scar as a cape, then throws it at Philoctetes, the satyr, who first wipes his face with it, then throws it on the ground. In the end, Scar did become a “very handsome throw rug”.

The Fab Four Vultures

Throughout his many adventures in the jungle, Mowgli ends up meeting a group of 4 silly vultures who sing to him about how they are his “friends ‘til the bitter end.” These vultures have mushroom haircuts and very distinctive Liverpool accents. They seem to be very closely reminiscent of The Beatles. In fact, they are a tribute to this Fab Four, and were actually supposed to be voiced by them. It never happened due to scheduling conflicts.

A Postcard From Up

In Toy Story 3, as Woody climbs up onto a desk, we get a glimpse of Andy’s bulletin board. It is mostly full of certificates, and papers, but one paper is different. It is a postcard from Carl and Ellie Fredricksen, from the movie UP. There are fan theories about the relationship between the characters, but one thing is for sure, Carl and Ellie went on an adventure and they sent Andy a postcard from their trip.

Marilyn Monroe is Featured

Hercules takes place in Ancient Greece, so there’s no reason any 1950’s pop icon should be there. But we all know that Disney likes to take liberties, and so Marilyn Monroe is actually featured twice in the movie, but it’s hard to catch. The first time is during a musical number where she is represented as a constellation in her iconic fly-away dress pose. She is also seen swirling around the Sea of Souls in the Underworld.

Motherless Characters

You’ve probably noticed this sad trend in many Disney movies, but a lot of the characters either lose their mothers young or don’t have them at all. A few examples include Bambi, Nemo, Cinderella, Lilo, Snow White, and Belle. The sad reason for this is because Walt Disney himself lost his mother at a young age. He bought her a new house which happened to have a faulty heating system. She died from Carbon Monoxide poisoning in 1938.

Mickey And Minnie Are Raally Married

Who can’t recognize the high-pitched, enthusiastic voices of the famous Mickey Mouse and his lovely lady, Minnie Mouse. The two make a remarkable couple, if we do say so ourselves, but there’s something even more adorable. The two people who voice the characters, Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor, are actually married in real life! So when you hear Mickey and Minnie interacting with each other, you can be sure that the love is real.

A-113

This is something you will definitely miss, if you’re not intently looking for it. The code “A113” seems to appear in almost every Disney and Pixar movie in one way or another. In Finding Nemo, a scuba diver uses the Sea Meister A-113 camera. In Toy Story, Andy’s mom’s license plate is A113. It turns out, many of the artists and creators of the movies went to the California Institute of Arts. A113 was the room they all learned in.

Recycled Animation

Ever notice how many scenes across different movies look similar? This isn’t just a coincidence. In order to save a lot of time and a lot of money, the animations are often times recycled and then redrawn as the correct character. You can see this happen in almost all of the Disney movies in some way. So if it looks like Snow White and Lady Marian have similar dance moves, you’re absolutely right, they are quite literally doing the exact same move.

A Beast Of Many Breeds

In Beauty and the Beast, we are never actually given further explanation as to what exactly the Beast is supposed to be. None of his features put together can be combined into any recognizable animal that we know of. This is actually on purpose, as the animator took pieces from different animals to make up the Beast as we know him. He included defining features from a lion, buffalo, gorilla, wild boar, bear, wolf, and man.

Lions And Tigers

Unless you’re a Zoologist, you probably wouldn’t have caught onto this one. During filming for The Lion King, real animals were used to make the characters’ roars sound authentic. However, the animals used were not lions, but tigers! It might seem strange to use the wrong animal to make sounds for a lion, but they were left with no choice. They did originally try for lions, but their roars weren’t loud enough. The tigers, however, were roaring clear as day.

Tom (Aladdin) Cruise

As you may or may not know, Aladdin was voiced by none other than Tom Cruise. Now that we’ve told you this, maybe you’ve started to think back to just how similar Aladdin, as a character, was to Tom Cruise. His movements, his lines, even his smile have the same fluidity and suaveness that go along with Tom Cruise. Well, this was done on purpose, as the character was modeled after Cruise. Same goes for Ariel and Alyssa Milano.

Boo Was A Real Baby

In Monsters Inc., the little human girl, Boo, is a only toddler and therefore cannot exactly get out sentences which amount to anything more than some baby babble. But how did they get all of that baby babble recorded? The film team actually cast a toddler to do the voice for boo, and followed her around recording her while she played. They then inserted her baby talk into the movie at the appropriate times and voila!

The Haunted Muses

In a specific scene in Hercules, where Meg is singing “I Won’t Say I’m In Love”, the muses are backing her up vocally. In one scene, we see the muses’ heads on top of pillars and they sing, with the second one to the left holding her “broken off” head in her hand. There’s nothing particularly amazing about the scene, until you realize that the muses are in the exact same formation at the head statues from The Haunted Mansion.

The Peddler Is The Genie

The beginning of Aladdin starts off with us being beckoned by a street merchant trying to sell us some trinkets. He eventually pulls out the coveted lamp, which we later learn belongs to the genie. But how did he get it? The merchant is voiced by Robin Williams, just like the genie, and both of them have only 4 fingers, while all other humans have five. Seems we met the genie in the very first scene.

Canadian Prices

This witty little joke is easy to miss, and is something that some of us in the USA can relate to. We can see a close up of a videogame magazine with Buzz Lightyear on the cover and some text on the back. Like any book sold at a bookstore, the price is down at the bottom and includes the US price and the Canadian price. The US price was a reasonable $4.50, whereas the Canadian price was $50.00.

A Rat And A Dog

Being a rat who wants to be a chef is not easy. In fact, just being a rat isn’t easy, especially when there are bigger animals trying to eat you. In Ratatouille, Remy the rat has to go through trials and tribulations to become a chef. One such struggle is running through a house with a dog in it. We know there’s a dog because of his shadow and his bark. Turns out, that’s the shadow of Doug from UP.

The Topless Woman

There is a scene from The Rescuers where Miss Bianca and Bernard are attempting to rescue the orphan, Penny from her dismal situation in the orphanage with the evil Madame Medusa. The two mice are in a mouse-sized go kart, speeding down a track. We can’t see anything as the mice zip by, because they are going way too fast. However, if you pause the scene at the right moment, there is very clearly a topless woman standing in the window.

The Wood Whittler

During the scene in Brave where Merida runs away to escape her fate of betrothal, she finds herself in a witch’s cabin. The witch, who does not want to be discovered as a witch, insists that she is a whittler of wood. We can see all of her carvings littering her shop. On one of the carvings, Sully from Monsters Inc.is standing there with a bit of an Irish pattern on his arms, to fit him into the scene.

Wall-E Disney

The story of Wall-E is a sad one, because it acts as a gut-punching reality check to the human race. The movie, although an animated cartoon, is not so far off from reality, and we are headed there if don’t clean up our act. The character, Wall-E, is a small robot who runs around the Earth trying to clean up piles of filth leftover by humans. Wall-E and the person he was named after are the tiny lights: Walter Elias Disney.

Tarzan And Little Brother

The Professor and Jane convinced Tarzan to take them to see his gorilla family, and when Tarzan is able to coax the gorilla out of the trees, they come over and curiously explore their clothes, hair, and trinkets. In one scene, a gorilla picks up the professor and shakes him upside down so the contents of his pockets spill out including something that doesn’t belong. It’s a plush toy of Little Brother, the dog from Mulan.

Mrs Potts’ Guest Appearance

There’s a scene in Tarzan where the gorillas find their way to Jane’s camp. While the humans are away, the gorillas start to play. Their crashes and smashing about starts to create a beat, and Terk starts to create a song. At one point, he finds a tea set on cart, and bangs them with spoons to add to the song. If the tea set looks familiar, it’s because it’s Mrs. Potts and Chip, from Beauty and the Beast.

Snow White, Red Rouge

Snow White has iconically rosy cheeks. What most people don’t know, however, is that Snow’s rosey cheeks just didn’t look right on the animation cel, no matter how much the artists tried. So what did they do? They turned to a makeup artist to apply real rouge to each shot of Snow’s face. One woman was such good at it, that she was recruited to do all close up shots specially, to make sure the got it right.

Ursula The Queen

Ursula might be an evil, malicious, conniving sea witch intent on taking King Triton’s Trident and ruling the seas for herself, but you can’t deny that the woman’s got style. Her character was actually modeled after Divine, a popular 1950’s drag queen. Not only did Disney model Ursula’s look, from her facial features to her makeup, on the drag queen, but also her voice and actions on sass.

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